Sandbox Adventure List 17: The Big Splash

It was five feet away from her. Five feet … and all she could do was sit there and look. Just sit there and look. Four days a week for the past six weeks, strapped in the stroller without being able to get out. She could see it. She could see it! But all she could do was imagine how it would feel. Just imagine.

But today … today was the day imagination crossed over and Sandbox List Adventures came true.

All summer long her brother has been splashing around, practicing his backstroke, his freestyle form, his starfish float, Superman float, and all other type of floats, while his sister watched. She pretended to be swimming too, mimicking his moves without ever touching water.

But today … today I stood in line for half an hour to get wristbands for entrance into the pool. And you know how I feel about community pools, don’t you?  I’m into hygiene. The whole urine being attacked by chlorinated water really seems to bother me. I mean how powerful is chlorine really? How fast can it get to other people’s urine before it can get to me? The whole reasoning behind this kind of chemistry concerns me. I’m a writer, so I’m not aware of the answers. But I took a chance that everyone needing to be wearing Huggies Little Swimmers diapers would be wearing them and that everyone used the toilet before jumping into the shallow end.

And so with this brave mindset, today was the day my daughter got a chance to jump in the Olympic-sized pool during recreational swim time  … A.K.A. Rec Swim. But better yet, today was the day we bought the purple wristbands for special entry into the kiddie pool. Today was the day she got to experience the water slides, sprinklers, and other awesome water splashing devices she’s been staring at for the entire summer. Today was the time for The Big Splash toddler style.

 

A smile lit up her face as we pulled up to the familiar place during a not so familiar time. Her brother couldn’t wait and took off running, she of course followed.

 

We passed by the bigger pool we would eventually jump into towards the end of our little adventure. But first thing was first … Kiddie pool.

 

Ahhhhh. The Kiddie Pool. It was amazing to see the laughter and giddiness coming through as we approached the area. My son wanted to demonstrate his sliding abilities first so that his sister could watch and learn.

 

She watched for about a second before she decided she was more of doer than a watcher.

 

She bravely made her way through the sprinklers, water spinners, and other Coppertone babies. She reached the top and swooshed her way down to the best splash of the summer. It was so good she decided to make it happen again and again and again for the next thirty-eight minutes. She took a sprinkler break and then returned to the slide again.

 

Considering all the kids and the potentially hazardous bodily fluids trying to survive in the chlorinated water I’d say I did a good job of taking one for the team. taking one for The Big Splash. And during the process I even satisfied one of my own summer wishes by going down the giant green slide. Granted doing a backflip when I landed in the pool was accidental, it still looked pretty cool and I felt pretty adventurous during this Sandbox List Adventure.

Nothing like a big splash to help make you right. So after some time in the giant pool, we returned back to the kiddie area so that my kids could continue their big splash moments. We left with pruny toes, pruny fingers, red eyes, and ashy skin, but we’d never felt better. The Guats and The Big Splash were a good combination that day.

 

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La Vecindad, Duct Tape, and Our Own Water Slide

The heat. It brings out the humidity in your hair, the sweat from your pores, and the inflatable pool your kid has been asking about. Well, that is unless you have a house with a regular pool and aren’t a starving writer like myself.

In any case it’s pool time, and while I was filling up the pool with hot air I started thinking about my own inflatable pool growing up. Yeah the nonexistent one. My parents believed in the beach or your bathtub. No in between. But luckily I lived in La Vecindad.

Photo via gadgetrivia.com

La Vecindad  was a Latino populated nine unit building in the inner city. A community — an extended family of sorts — where everyone knew everyone, and if you had a family disagreement all the families knew about it. Thin walls. We were joined together through the good, the bad, and the ugly. But we enjoyed our stay there, because when it came to the summer the kid with the giant inflatable pool, which was usually Marisolita, always shared. It was the La Vecindad code.

One year someone got a Slip-N-Slide, but we soon realized that Slip-N-Slides and concrete patios aren’t a good combination. So we stuck with the pool.

It was always a team effort to blow that thing up and make sure there were no holes. If there were we’d find a solution — Vecindad Style. Ahhhh. The magic of duct tape. That swimming pool must’ve had at least four patches, but we loved it. It was our own upscale getaway, and if it happened to leak we always had more tape.

It would get filled with massive gallons of water and we would splash and swim around pretending we were Aquaman, have relay races and swim like we were Michael Phelps, then play volleyball with our makeshift net — duct tape also involved the creation of this sporting equipment. We were resourceful inner city kids.

But one of the best parts was the end — when we let the water out. We’d all position ourselves at the top of the stairs, give someone the signal with our pruney hands and whoosh! Niagara Falls in La Vecindad.  Gallons upon gallons of water creating mini tidal waves that allowed us to “slide” down the 24 steps and race back up for another run. We didn’t care whether there was dirt, insects, gum, or Budweiser residue on the patio floors and steps, we were sliding down those steps. And it was awesome. 

I loved our little Raging Waters experience. 

So as my son was done swimming and splashing around, I tried to replicate the same childhood moment, but seeing how we didn’t have 24 steps,  it wasn’t the same. However he still had a good time slipping and sliding … him and his Batman figurines.